LD TOWN, Maine - A half-acre of genetically engineered corn at a University
of Maine farm was destroyed this week, in what a researcher called an act of
ecoterrorism.

About 1,000 stalks of corn were destroyed, probably with a machete, sometime
late Wednesday or early Thursday at the university-owned Rogers Farm, police
said.

Genetically engineered plants contain up to three additional genes, which
are spliced into the plant's DNA, and a corresponding number of new
proteins. The changes may increase the plant's size, help it resist disease,
or, as in the case of the university corn, prevent damage from herbicides.

John Jemison, a water quality specialist with the university's cooperative
extension service, said Thursday that he had been studying the corn's
resistance to the popular herbicide Roundup. The seed was donated by the
DeKalb Seed Co., a subsidiary of the Monsanto Corp., which manufactures
Roundup.

Jemison said he believes the destruction was an act of ecoterrorism directed
against the genetically altered crop, which environmental activists have
targeted for destruction elsewhere.

''It's a shame,'' Jemison said. ''We're not trying to hide anything here.
We're just trying to provide Maine farmers with some practical research.''

The crop is legal in Maine and has been approved by the Food and Drug
Administration.

Jemison said it was not grown for human consumption, but was to be fed to
cows when the research was complete.

''It may be that I find that farmers shouldn't be using this crop,'' Jemison
said. ''But I won't know until I study it. The people responsible for this
didn't even want me to try.''

In an Aug. 16 e-mail sent to the Bangor Daily News, Environmental activist
Nancy Oden of Jonesboro gave explicit directions to the location of the
cornfield and advised activists to wear ''a mask to avoid the toxic pollen
and gloves to avoid toxins throughout the plant.''

Oden said Thursday that while she had not destroyed the plants, she
commended those who did. ''I'm glad they did it,'' she said. ''It may not
have been legal, but it was the moral thing to do.''

Oden said the e-mail was not meant to incite destruction, only to inform
environmentalists.

Old Town police and the university's public safety department will step up
patrols to prevent any further destruction, according to university
spokesman Joe Carr.

Three years after genetically engineered foods were quietly
introduced into the country's grocery stores, Canadians are
beginning to take notice.

And that's making food manufacturers - as well as the powerful
agribusiness interests that have been pushing genetic
engineering - nervous.

The nub of the problem is simple. On one hand, surveys show
consumers prefer not to eat foods into which genes from other
species have been artificially spliced. The idea of ingesting
what the British tabloid newspapers have taken to calling
``Frankenstein foods'' seems to make most Canadians
squeamish.

On the other hand, the biotech nology industry has invested
literally billions of dollars to make such genetic splicing
possible, arguing that by so doing it is making food cheaper
and thus contributing to the alleviation of world hunger.

Along the way, the industry has wooed universities with
visions of lucrative research opportunities, farmers with
expectations of cheaper costs and governments with promises
of new, high-technology jobs.

Indeed, it is the laissez-faire attitude of government regulators
that has proved to be one of the most curious elements of the
entire affair.

Up to now, any conflict between consumer and producer
interests in North America has been avoided through what can
only be described as a deliberate government policy of keeping
consumers in the dark.

That's because, under pressure from farm organizations and the
biotechnology industry, both the Canadian and U.S.
governments have refused to require that genetically modified
food be labelled.

Governments say they don't want labelling because genetically
modified (what the Canadian Food Inspection Agency calls
``novel'') foods are not ``substantially different'' from their
normal counterparts.

But the real reason may be more practical.

If consumers could tell which foods were genetically
engineered, they would be able to avoid buying them.

Or, as Tom Francis, Canadian research director for Novartis
Seeds Inc., a subsidiary of one of the world largest
biotechnology firms, puts it: ``When you label it, the premise is
that there is some difference . . .

``When you start labelling, what is the message sent to
consumers?''

But now that uneasy equilibrium is beginning to fall apart.

Canadians are becoming more aware of the vigorous - and
sometimes violent - opposition to genetic engineering in
Europe.

In Britain environmentalists have destroyed fields of genetically
modified crops.

And throughout Europe, consumers' threats to boycott
genetically engineered products have persuaded major grocery
chains to remove them from their shelves.

So when mainstream environmental organizations such as the
Sierra Club and Greenpeace announced earlier this year that
they were preparing to target certain genetically engineered
grocery products in North America, the big food companies
paid attention.

Late last month, both H.J. Heinz and Gerber announced they
were moving to rid their North American baby foods of
genetically engineered materials.